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In his mind he heard the Inquisitor recite words from the Malleus maleficarum: “Women are by nature instruments of Satan -- they are by nature carnal, a structural defect rooted in the original creation.” “You need only ask His forgiveness,” Rebecca whispered. “You are frightened. You have much more at risk than I.” “You know that isn’t true. Not now.” “They would excommunicate you. Better to die than that.” She sighed a little. “Such a wondrous thing we have done. How is it sinful, Father? It does not feel like sin.” He kissed her knuckles. He had no answer for her, nor for himself. God did not respond to his queries no matter how many lashes he endured. After the evening visit, when all the village had long since retired to bed, Father Radcliff made his way back down the damp, dark stone stairs to the cold cell. His black robes rustled along the floor, sending rats skittering back to their hideaways in the crevices along the wall. Each night he feared disturbing her, but she did not awaken. With the lamp placed just to his left, allowing a dull golden haze to illuminate the cell, he pressed his face against the bars, curled his fingers around them, and stared at her. She was a pale goddess curled up in the shape of a child, shivering uncontrollably with cold and bad dreams. Every curve of her sleek body captivated him, and as she trembled he longed to gather her into his arms, warm her velvet flesh with his hands. He drank in the swell of her breasts, their small nipples erect with kisses from the winter air. He drifted over silken thighs, lingered upon the shadow between them and the beautiful mystery they sheltered. “Forgive me, Father,” he whispered, crossing himself as tears blurred his sight. He sinned merely by looking at her. The instrument by which he must free her from his veins awaited him in his room, bloodstained leather for a back scarred with each thought of her. Forgive
me, Father, that I love her more than You. # “Arrest her!” he cried weeks earlier, when the witch-hunts swept through villages like the Pestilence two centuries before. Rebecca’s neighbor accompanied the men. “It is she who has been making me ill!” Goodwife Oldham shrieked. “She who has destroyed our cattle!” The men who burst into Rebecca’s home at the young priest’s behest latched their arms around hers, lifting all but the tips of her toes from the wooden floor. She did not resist, only cast a knowing glance at him before they carried her outside to the witches’ cart. Her humble possessions would be gathered and sold to pay for the costs of her arrest and imprisonment, and ultimately her execution. No, no evidence here, none that anyone could see, for the burden he carried in his soul was his alone. Father Radcliff followed them to the courthouse. Villagers threw rocks and rotten fruit at the cart in which she crouched, allowing their abuse with an interminable sadness in her eyes. She pitied them, he knew, those same neighbors whom a week before sought her services in healing their ailments. She pitied their ignorance, which the Church fostered in their susceptible and easily molded minds. His elders planted the fear, the suspicion. Any one of them, tortured enough, would confess to the same crimes of which she was accused. He did not believe in pacts with the devil any more than he believed she could curdle the milk of her neighbor’s cow. They jailed her overnight. At dawn he waited on the dais in the center of town, watching the horse-drawn witches’ cart rumble over cobblestones. The Inquisitor and tribunal, along with three hundred spectators, awaited her arrival as well. The men dragged Rebecca from the cart. Her stiff, cramped legs could barely support her. They grasped the collar of her simple dress and yanked downward, shredding it to the waist. A blush that began on her chest crept up her neck, into her cheeks, and she covered her breasts with her arms. “Please…” she began, until one of the men backhanded her. The priest looked away, but only for a moment. They removed the rest of her dress, and her underclothes, leaving just the sunlight and her glorious waist-length hair to clothe her. She was the color of fresh cream and perfectly smooth. He memorized every curve, every angle, as if studying a sculpture of antiquity. The other man began hacking away at her hair, and if she had been nothing short of stolid before, now she broke down into heart-wrenching tears. The priest lowered his head. They took razors to what was left, shaving her to stubble lest she weave their fates into her hair. The first man knelt before her and, forcing her legs apart, scraped away at that hair as well. Her dark curls joined the thick mass already fallen to the stones. Tears rolled down Rebecca’s cheeks as did thin streams of blood down her inner thighs. He exposed the soft pink folds and even parted her lower lips to complete the job. Father Radcliff grasped a post on the dais, for his knees quavered at the sight of the man’s fingers inside the poor girl. He did not need to look at the crowd to know there were more than a few lustful leers intended for that rosy flesh. “Enough!” he shouted at last. “Let her be questioned!” Her breast heaved with a sigh of relief, and before they turned her away from the platform he caught a glimmer of gratitude in her eyes. “Approach the dais,” said the Inquisitor. The Church had appointed him, an educated man from the city who traveled from village to village in the service of the witch hunters. Employment abounded in these times for lawyers and judges, for jailers and executioners and the men who sat on the tribunals. Even for humble village priests, who heard the confessions of perhaps scores of women apiece. Rebecca walked backward so as not to give the Inquisitor the evil eye. With each sonorous tolling of the church bell she took another awkward step. She stumbled often, and crossed one arm over her breasts while cupping her other hand between her quivering legs. Her entire body turned crimson with shame. “You have been seen mixing potions in the woods,” said the Inquisitor. “No--” “Has she not, Father? Did her accuser not state for the tribunal that she has attempted to peddle such potions to the good townsfolk?” “This woman… She came to me in the woods one day--likely after her visit with the Devil--and claimed she could heal my illness.” His tongue felt made of stone, his lips as dry as the eyes of the inquisitor who stared without compassion at the frightened girl. “I pray and pray to God in order to remain strong, for I shall never turn from Him no matter what devils the witch sends for me.” “What have you to say to this accusation?”
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